


Sacred Sites

by victuri



Series: maybe the real ghosts were the friends we made along the way [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: CONTAINS FRIENDSHIP GHOSTS AND MORE, Gen, HQ Brofest Apprentice Tier, Semi AU, Some Cursing, Sort Of, but not too much, buzzfeed unsolved au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 06:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victuri/pseuds/victuri
Summary: Tsukishima doesn't want to go ghost hunting. He especially doesn't want to go ghost hunting withHinata.At least it turns out not to be completely horrible. It's partly his own fault, anyway.





	Sacred Sites

Leaves rustle loudly as Hinata comes crashing through the trees growing in and around the abandoned hotel. He steadies himself by placing his hands on his knees after nearly falling flat on his face while stumbling out. He’s breathing heavily, and when he yells he does it through heaving breaths. “Tsukishima, you bastard! I could have been killed!” 

Tsukishima looks at Hinata, at his wide, fearful eyes and ruffled appearance, and snickers. He can feel the handheld-camera shaking with his movements. Hopefully the look of indignant fury Hinata turns on him is still in frame. “Okay,” Tsukishima says, voice thick with amusement, “I’m totally using this as a cold open.” 

 

_i._

Tsukishima spent most of his time in high school convinced he’d only have to be around Hinata for those three years, and then he’d be rid of him. There was simply no way they’d end up at the same university; Hinata would get a scholarship to some sports-oriented university and end up playing volleyball professionally in no time, while he’d finally be able to study paleontology in Tokyo the way he’d always dreamed of. 

He hadn’t counted on the accident. It had just seemed so natural to him that nothing could stop Hinata from playing volleyball. It was a part of him, not something to just be taken away. 

But, sometimes that’s how life goes. Unexpected things happen. One nasty fall was really all it took, and it left Hinata unable to play volleyball seriously for years, at least, if not the rest of his life. He’d certainly never go pro. 

After that, they didn’t speak much. Though they certainly got along much better than they did in their first year at Karasuno, he and Hinata weren’t close by anybody’s definition of the word. That’s why it was so surprising when Hinata rushed up to him after graduation to nearly tackle him with an enthusiastic hug. 

“Tsukishima! Congrats!” He yells, loud enough that it would no doubt have been painful had his mouth actually been anywhere near Tsukishima’s ear, instead of somewhere near his chest. “Yamaguchi told me you got in as well!”

And Tsukishima stares, dumbfounded, because Hinata can’t possibly be saying what Tsukishima thinks he’s saying. There’s just no way. Hinata is supposed to be the _stupid one_. “Got in where?”

Hinata doesn’t even blink. “Tokyo U! Duh.” When Tsukishima does nothing but stare at him, Hinata releases his chest and punches him in the shoulder, lightly. “The least you could do is say congratulations.”

Tsukishima’s mind is blank in a way he’s pretty certain is shock, so he simply mumbles a quick congratulations and walks away. 

When he gets home, he starts planning ways to avoid Hinata at campus. He thinks it’ll be pretty easy if they won’t be in the same faculty, but he can’t plan for that because he simply doesn’t know what Hinata is going to study. He’s never asked. 

Of course, all his plans, however vague they may be, are dashed anyway when his and Hinata’s moms decide they should live together, since they already knew each other, and band together to make it happen. 

Well. Being Hinata’s roommate turns out to be not as terrible as he’d expected, but he still would have preferred not to be dragged along on this stupid ghost hunt.

 

_vi._

“Look,” Tsukishima snaps about ten minutes later, when Hinata still hasn’t stopped whining about his supposed brush with death, “You weren’t going to die, okay? Ghost aren’t _real_ , so they can’t attack you. You were perfectly safe.” He pauses to push a branch aside, only to have a vine swing forward and slap him in the face. The door to the building they’re trying to enter was overgrown, so they’re trying to find a different way in, but it just seems like the foliage is only getting thicker. “Besides,” Tsukishima continues, “I was literally only three meters away. If something did happen, I could’ve gotten you out in time.”

“I wasn’t talking about the ghosts,” Hinata says from behind him. It’s pretty unfair, Tsukishima thinks, that Hinata gets to be shielded from the branches Tsukishima has to struggle to keep away from his face, just because he’s so much smaller. “Okay, I was kind of talking about ghosts, which are real and _definitely can kill you, Tsukishima_. But to be honest, I was more worried about the snakes.”

Tsukishima freezes. “Snakes?” 

At his sudden stop, Hinata bumps into him. “Um. Tsu-”

“What. Snakes.” Tsukishima grits ou from between clenched teeth. Did he just see something move on the ground over there? It had better just have been his imagination, or he is absolutely going to kill Hinata dead. 

“Oh, the- the _habu_?” Hinata says, his voice dripping with the sort of confusion that always makes Tsukishima want to slap some sense into him. Now especially. “This kind of place is apparently where they like to hang out, so-”

Tsukishima doesn’t let him finish the sentence. He reaches behind him blindly to wrap his hand around Hinata’s bicep in an iron grip and steers them out of the foliage as quickly and carefully as he can manage. “No more walking through the bushes,” Tsukishima commands, once they’ve reached the safety of the road between buildings. “I’m not going to be snake food because of _you_.”

Hinata laughs, though it’s tinged with a hint of nervousness. He attempts to shake free from Tsukishima’s grip, but gives up pretty soon when he realizes he won’t be freed until Tsukishima decides to let go. “Come on, it’s not _that_ dangerous.”

“You _just_ said you could have died!” Tsukishima’s hand clenches tighter around Hinata’s arm, causing Hinata to make a pained noise. It’s what he gets, Tsukishima thinks, for being such an idiot. “Habu snakes are ridiculously poisonous, and you just want us to walk around without any kind of protection.”

“No?” Hinata squeeks. At Tsukishima’s glare, he says more firmly, “No. I told you to wear sturdy boots, right? So we’re not unprotected. The only reason I was worried before is because I fell, so my arms or something could have been bitten.” 

He can’t be serious. This has to be some kind of prank. However, as Tsukishima searches Hinata’s face, he comes to the conclusion that he is. “Those boots aren’t high enough to stop a snake from biting you in the calf, or something. It’s not protection,” he lets go of Hinata with a sigh, and rubs his temples with his fingers to stave off an oncoming headache. After a moment, he adds, “Dumbass.” 

After all that trouble, Hinata has the nerve to laugh at him. “You sound like Kageyama.” 

“It’s because you are a dumbass,” Tsukishima says, without any real malice behind it. 

Hinata opens his mouth - probably to spout more idiotic comparisons between Tsukishima and Kageyama, even though they’re _definitely nothing alike, thanks_. Tsukishima decides to cut him off at the pass. “For fu- let’s just go, yeah? We still need to find a stupid building for you to tell your stupid ghost story in. And for fuck’s sake, _stay on the path_.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n!” Hinata gives a mock solut before bounding off down the path, as if he isn’t carrying a heavy bag full of camera equipment. Tsukishima still envies that seemingly endless reserve of energy Hinata has. He’s been keeping up with his fitness, but still he can feel himself getting slowed down by the weight of his own backpack. 

“Would you slow down,” Tsukishima growls, doing his best to trot after Hinata, “We can’t all be monsters like you.” 

At his words, Hinata looks over his shoulder to see Tsukishima lagging behind him, and slows down. He smiles, and somehow makes it look apologetic. Tsukishima has always admired the range of emotions Hinata can show with a single smile, while he himself only ever manages to look slightly constipated. “Sorry, Tsukki,” Hinata offers. Tsukishima glares at him, and he quickly adds, “-shima. Sorry, Tsukishima.”

Tsukishima grunts in acknowledgement and falls into step next to Hinata. At least with his longer legs, he doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with Hinata when he’s just walking at his normal - absurdly fast - walking speed. 

They walk for a while in what Tsukishima begrudgingly admits is a companionable silence, before Hinata runs off again when they near yet another graffiti covered building. Fortunately, Tsukishima doesn’t have to wonder long about what makes this building so different from the rest, because as soon as Hinata reaches it he shouts, “The side entrance! Isn’t it cool, Tsukishima?” 

“It looks like a normal entrance to me,” Tsukishima says, taking his sweet time walking over, “Nothing especially cool about it.” Once he draws near enough to see the doorway, he amends his statement. “A normal, boarded up entrance. Still not anything special.” 

Hinata looks at him, eyes wide and shining in a way that makes Tsukishima doubt he even heard anything he just said. He smiles a blinding smile and says, “Let’s go inside.”

Slowly and deliberately, Tsukishima looks from Hinata to the door and back. “Did you not notice that the entrance is boarded up? We can’t-”

“I have _eyes_ ,” Hinata interrupts him, “Properly working ones, unlike you. So, yeah, I saw. Did _you_ not see that the windows aren’t boarded up.” He gestures at the large windows on either side of the door, obscenely proud of himself. The glass has all long since been knocked out, or maybe there was never any glass in them in the first place. Either way, it’s a perfectly viable entrance; big, and not too high off the ground that they’d have to do some awkward climbing. 

“Fine,” he agrees with a shrug. “If that’s where you want to tell your damn story, let’s do it.”

 

_ii._

Having Hinata as a housemate turns out to be a lot like what Tsukishima imagines living with four different people, as opposed to just the one, to be like. Partly because of his rather large personality, as Tsukishima has heard Hinata’s friends describe it multiple times, but mostly because he always seems to have people around him. Which means, much to Tsukishima’s dismay, that their tiny two-person apartment is usually occupied with at least four people at any given time. 

At first Tsukishima didn’t mind it all that much. The only person who came over frequently in the beginning was Yachi, who was still adjusting to her life in Tokyo, same as them. She wasn’t nearly as annoying to be around as Hinata, which meant he tolerated her presence. 

However, after only a couple of weeks, Hinata started making _friends_. Friends studying the same thing as him - sociology, Tsukishima found out, three weeks into their first semester, which was frankly a little embarrassing - or just sharing classes with him. Friends he met at the library, at the gym, at a concert, at a restaurant, on the train, while out shopping, while out drinking, in a _public fucking bathroom_. It was like Hinata had some sort of people magnet attached to him, and no matter where he went or how uncomfortable the situation was, he managed to make friends. And he brought them all to their apartment at some point or another, frequently enough that Tsukishima had started getting used to finding strangers sitting at his kitchen table when he came home. 

It got worse when Hinata started dating - men and women would walk in and out and around the apartment at all hours of the night, making all kinds of noise. Eventually Tsukishima got used to hearing strange noises at night, which is why he didn’t really think anything other then not this again when he heard what sounded like a woman’s moan in the middle of the night. 

At least, not until the next morning, when Hinata stares intently at him over a cup of coffee which is really more sugar than coffee and asks, “Did you have a girl over last night?”

Tsukishima scoffs at that, because _obviously not_. He isn’t really interested in dating, and even if he were, he doesn’t know any girl to bring home. Even after nearly half a year, the only people he really knows are Yachi and Hinata - and, he supposes, Hinata’s friends, if you count being able to match face and name together as _knowing_ someone, which Tsukishima really doesn’t. He just hasn’t connected with anybody yet, which is _totally fine, he really doesn’t need help getting to know anybody, thanks_ , but also means he won’t be able to just hook up with somebody at random. 

“Oh,” Hinata says, stare every bit as intense as it had been before, “were you with a guy, then? One with a very girly moan.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “I’m not even into guys.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with that. The male form is actually quite beautiful…” Hinata trails off, likely immersed in some memory or other. Tsukishima debates slipping away to his room while Hinata is distracted, but before he can reach a decision, Hinata shakes his head and snaps out of his memory. “That’s not the point. Either you had a girl over, somebody snuck into our apartment to have sex in the middle of the night, or I’m hallucinating. One of those things, because I _definitely_ heard a girl moan last night.”

It takes a while for Hinata’s words to sink in, but when they do, they stir something in his memory. “You’re not hallucinating. I heard it too.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Tsukishima nods, trying to recall the details. “Sometime around one, one-thirty at night? I remember thinking it was another one of yours.”

Hinata’s mouth drops open in shock. “Oh my God. Tsukishima,” he says, voice strained, “ _is somebody sneaking into our apartment to have sex?_ ”

“Who knows,” Tsukishima says, “Your friends get in here all the time when you’re not here. Maybe it’s one of them.” He raises an accusatory eyebrow, though it doesn’t result in the guilt and embarrassment he wants to see Hinata display. 

“Nah, none of them would do that. They- well.” He pauses, thinking. Tsukishima’s eyebrow creeps highed up his forehead. “Maybe Ishii, but he has this absolutely _massive_ apartment that his dad bought for him, so I don’t see why he’d come over here to bone down.” 

Tsukishima nearly chokes on the sip of coffee he was taking. “Please don’t say that again. Ever.”

“What?” Hinata asks, eyes wide and innocent. It’s all an illusion, Tsukishima knows, but a very convincing one. “Bone down?” 

At least this time, Tsukishima is prepared, which meant he doesn’t nearly choke again, though he does have to fight to keep from flinching. He fixes Hinata with a glare, which doesn’t have any effect on him. It stopped having an effect somewhere around their second year at Karasuno, Tsukishima recalls. 

“Would you prefer if I called it adult nap time? Doing the horizontal tango? Gland-to-gland combat?” With each new euphemism he named, Hinata’s grin grows wider, and Tsukishima’s face grows redder. “The two person push-ups? Cave-diving?”

Finally, Tsukishima’s composure snaps. “For the love of all that is holy,” he begs, “please stop.”

Hinata sits back, pouting, though he does agree to stop. “You’re kind of a prude, Tsukishima.”

Before Tsukishima can retort, Hinata slams his hands on the table. “But, again, not the point. If somebody is sneaking into our home to do the do, we’ve got to tell them to stop. Drink a few more cups of that coffee, Tsukishima, because we’re going hunting for sex-fiends tonight.”

Tsukishima groans. “Can’t you just do that yourself? I want to sleep.”

“No,” Hinata says, rather decisively. “Just think of it as a bonding moment. We hardly talk to each other anymore.”

Tsukishima wants to point out that this is mostly Hinata’s fault, since he’s the one who keeps bringing people over, but he has to admit that Hinata asks him to join in on the conversation more than enough. “Fine,” Tsukishima agreed, against his better judgement, “Let’s do it.”

 

_vii._

The inside of the hotel is strange, to say the least. Most of the rooms have collapsed, which they’d been expecting, but parts of the wall jutted out in weird angles as well, in ways that couldn’t possibly have been caused by the collapse. The architecture seems to be off, in some way, like it was designed by somebody who only had a vague idea what buildings were supposed to look like.

“Creepy,” Hinata whispers, turning in a circle slowly, camera in hand, to take it all in. It comes to rest pointing directly as Tsukishima. “Don’t you think it’s creepy?”

“Yeah,” he says nonchalantly, and watches Hinata’s face light up behind the camera, “If we’re talking about how bad this architect was at his job. Definitely very creepy.” 

Hinata’s face scrunches up in annoyance. “Damn you, Stingyshima. You can’t tell me you don’t feel any strange energy here.” 

“I don’t feel any strange energy here,” Tsukishima deadpans. He raises his eyebrows in pretend surprise. “Would you look at that. I can.”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “You suck. Do you know that?”

“I thought sucking was your thing,” Tsukishima retorts, smirking. He’s rewarded by Hinata groaning in annoyance and heading over to where he put his bag down to retrieve some of their equipment. 

“That was so bad,” he complains, “but whatever. We should just start getting into the backstory of this place.” He pulls a collapsible tripod from his backpack and sets it down rather violently. A cloud is raised as he does. 

Dubiously, Tsukishima looks around the room and the dust-covered floor. “Did you bring chairs, or something?”

Hinata doesn’t look up from fiddling with the camera. “No? We can just sit on the floor.” He pulls his hands away from the camera, apparently satisfied with his work. “Alright! Let’s get down to business.” 

Tsukishima watches in disgust as Hinata walks around to face the camera, which is angled down, and plops down on the floor, raising another cloud of dust. “Um. _No_. Nope, I’m not sitting down there.”

“Why not?” Hinata asks with what seems to be genuine confusion. 

“It’s disgusting,” Tsukishima snaps. “I’d prefer for my clothes to not become dust-covered rags, thanks.” 

Hinata rolls his eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s nothing that won’t come out in the wash.” He eyes Tsukishima up and down, and a completely infuriating smirk stretches his mouth. “Or are you secretly afraid of the ghosts?” 

A part of Tsukishima still hates this, how it’s so easy for Hinata to press his buttons without even trying, but a much larger part of him has grown used to this. As much as Hinata may annoy him at times, it’s never enough for Tsukishima to not go along with whatever stupid thing he’s planning. 

 

_iii._

It takes Tsukishima approximately ten minutes to regret his decision to go along with Hinata’s stupid plan. He wants to socialize with his roommate, yes, but that was before he remembered just how exhausting Hinata’s endless supply of energy was. 

“Would it kill you to sit still for _one. second_?” 

Hinata, infuriatingly, doesn’t stop bouncing his leg. Turning his head to look at Tsukishima, he grins. “Dunno. Haven’t tried it yet.”

Tsukishima lowers his head into his hands with a groan. Mostly to himself, he asks, “Why did I ever agree to this?” 

“Who knows,” Hinata muses, humming in thought. “Maybe you were bored. Maybe you don’t like the idea of somebody having sex on our couch either. Or-”

Tsukishima can feel the couch dip as Hinata moves closer to him.

“-maybe-”

He leans as far away from where he knew Hinata to be as possible, peaking cautiously over the edge of his hands.

“-you just want to spend time with me!” Hinata launches himself at Tsukishima in a hug. Moving with all the practice of somebody who’s been dealing with Hinata’s tactile and affectionate nature for years, Tsukishima dodges his attack, launching one on the couch pillows at him in the same movement. It hits the little menace right in the face, and Tsukishima crows in victory. 

“You’ve gotten so slow, old man,” he taunts, only to have to duck as Hinata throws the pillow right back at him. “Ha! Can’t aim either? How- oof.” 

While Tsukishima had been distracted by the pillow-missile, Hinata had lunged over the back of the couch to tackle him to the ground. He ends up sitting on Tsukishima’s chest, leaning forward to pin his wrists to the ground. “Don’t underestimate me, kid,” he says.

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. He shakes his arms a little in a sign for Hinata to release him, which he does. “I’m hardly a kid,” he grumbles as Hinata moves off his chest. He sits up, doing his best to remove the crinkles from his shirt. 

“If I’m an ‘old man’, then you’re a kid,” Hinata argues. With a huff, he strides over to the other side of the couch to let himself drop onto it again. “You’re so boring, Tsukishima,” he whines, which hardly seems fair; Tsukishima has no idea was boring things he did. “I bet all you wanna do is watch a movie, or something, while we wait for the sex criminals.”

“ _Sex criminals?_ ” Tsukishima mouths to himself, then shakes his head to dispel the thought from his mind. “I mean. Yes?” For some reason he feels ashamed to be admitting this. “That’s fine, right? It’s not like we have anything better to do.” 

“Fine,” Hinata sighs, like the mere suggestion affronts him, “Grab your laptop then, before you sit down.” 

For a moment, Tsukishima feels like arguing. _It’s not like we have to, if you’re that opposed to it_ , he wants to say, but thinks better of it at the last moment. It’ll probably lead to Hinata goading him into one of his annoying arguments again, and he doesn’t feel like dealing with that more than once in a two hour period. 

Instead of starting another argument, he settles down on the couch next to Hinata with his laptop open. They have a short discussion about which movie to watch - Hinata insists on watching _A Christmas Prince_ , which Tsukishima vehemently disagrees with because, first of all, it’s only _October_ and, second, just _no_ \- which leads to them abandoning the movie all together and re-watching _Terrace House_ instead. At least Tsukishima knows this is something the can both enjoy. 

He doesn’t realize when, exactly, he starts to drift off. All he knows is that it’s already well past midnight and Hinata is slumped against him, breathing deeply as if he’s asleep already but with his eyes still open and squinting at the screen, and he’s tired down to his very bones. He blinks, and opens his eyes to the still quiet that accompanies the wee hours of the morning. The illumination from the laptop-screen is gone, leaving the room in darkness. Reaching out with his hand reveals that his laptop is still open; Hinata clearly hasn’t shut it, which means it’s run out of battery. It’s probably several hours later, then.

As he thinks it, Tsukishima becomes aware of the effects of falling asleep on their tiny couch. He feels cold all over except for the too-hot part of his side that has Hinata plastered again it; there’s a crick in his neck, his legs are cramped up, and his glasses have left a painful indent on his nose. He should probably go to his bed to get at least a few hours of comfortable sleep before he has to get to class. He’s in the process of disentangling Hinata from him as gently as possible - just so he won’t wake up and demand Tsukishima stay with him on their stupid mission, obviously - when he hears a noise. A low moan, or maybe whimper. 

The first though that goes through his sleep-addled mind is: _is that what woke me up?_ The second comes a few seconds later, after a moment of startling clarity: _is that what we’ve been hearing these past couple nights?_

“Hinata,” he hisses, shaking his roommate by the shoulder. All it does is cause him to shift in his sleep and mumble something inaudible. “ _Hinata_ ,” Tsukishima repeats, shaking turning more urgent as the sound reaches his ears again. He doesn’t think there’s somebody in their apartment, but if there is - if there _is _\--__

Hinata wakes up with a groan. “What?” he mumbles, only for Tsukishima to shush him. 

“Shut up. Listen.” 

It comes again. That sound, like somebody moaning, though the more Tsukishima listens to it, the more he thinks it isn’t that at all. It sounds like somebody crying. 

He can’t see Hinata properly in the dark, but he can make out the whites of his eyes if he squints. From what he can tell, Hinata’s eyes are wide in what might be fear but could just as easily be excitement. 

“Is that--” he whispers, soft enough for it to almost be inaudible, and Tsukishima nods frantically, even though Hinata might not be able to see him. “Do you think they’re inside?” 

“It sounds close,” Tsukishima whispers, equally as quiet, “but I don’t know.” 

They both fall silent as they hear the crying again. After the voice quiets again, Hinata stand up. “Alright,” he says, right as the flashlight from his phone turns on and shines directly in Tsukishima’s face. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Tsukishima hisses, “are you trying to _blind_ me?” 

“No!” Hinata shouts, then claps a hand over his own mouth. When he removes it, his voice is much more quiet. “No, god, sorry. Sorry. I just figured we’d need a light to catch whoever’s here.” 

“Then _why_ -” Tsukishima starts, only to cut himself off with a frustrated huff. Getting angry isn’t going to fix anything. “Jesus, fine. Fine. Let’s kick out whoever is here and get this over with, so I can finally go to bed.” 

“Cool. Alright,” Hinata whispers, “There’s a baseball bat underneath the couch. Grab that and follow me.” 

Confused, Tsukishima bends down to see that there is, indeed, a bat underneath the couch. He didn’t even know Hinata _had_ a bat. Where did he get it? How long has it been there? Why didn’t he notice? All these questions swirl through his head, but he pushes them aside and grabs hold of the bat. Those questions, can wait; for now, he needs to be able to defend himself from whatever psycho may have broken into their apartment. 

With how small it is, it doesn’t take them long to inspect the entire apartment. They don’t find anything, but Tsukishima still can’t bring himself to loosen his grip on the bat. He still feels uneasy - and, moments later, he discovers that this reaction is completely justified. 

They’re standing in the space between their two bedroom doors. Hinata holds his phone up as high as he can, and a good chunk of the hall is illuminated, showing clearly that there is no one in there with them. And yet - the sound of somebody crying, louder now than ever before. It’s clear as day, as if the person making the noise is standing right in front of them. Except there’s nobody there. 

Hinata is standing close enough to him that Tsukishima can feel him start trembling like a leaf. “Tsukishima,” he whispers, “I think we may be _haunted_.” 

 

_viii._

Hinata has a natural charisma Tsukishima has always envied. It transfers well to the screen, too; he draws viewers in and keep them engaged, no matter what kind of nonsense he may be spouting. 

“Ancient tombs? Sacred sites? _Cursed land_? This isn’t _Poltergeist_.” 

Hinata rolls his eyes. “No, duh. That’s a movie; this is real life.” He leans toward Tsukishima and widens his eyes in feigned concern. “Are you having trouble distinguishing between real life and fiction?” 

Tsukishima shoves him. “As if. If any of us has trouble knowing what’s real, it’s you. Need I remind you which of us believes in ghosts, here?” 

Predictably, this sends Hinata off on another tangent about how ghosts are absolutely real, Tsukishima saw it too and, really, he should stop putting on this tough guy act and just admit that ghosts exist already. Tsukishima lets him go at it for a little while before reminding him they have a video to film. 

“Yeah, a video proving the existence of ghosts,” Hinata mutters, but he does get back to telling his story about the history of the place their in. 

The story of the Royal Hotel is about what Tsukishima has come to expect of ghost stories involving haunted places. The ground the hotel was constructed on was, as the developers had apparently been informed of by local Buddhist Monks, a sacred burial ground. After a series of accidents, people started thinking the land was cursed and the project was abandoned. So now the world was left with an unfinished, abandoned, and supposedly haunted hotel. 

“However,” Hinata informs him, using that stupid narration voice of his, “Some people think the accidents were simply a result of poor planning. The hotel was constructed during Japan’s bubble economy years, so-” 

“Hold it,” Tsukishima cuts in. “Are you telling me this is all just a result of poor planning, but people still prefer to believe that the land is cursed?” 

“Well-” 

“I knew people were stupid, but I never thought they were this stupid.” 

“ _Well_ ,” Hinata repeats, clearly not about to let himself be talked over again, “if you’d just let me finish, you’d know that there were some actual ghost sightings in the building that have led people to believe that there may be spirits roaming these halls.” 

He proceeds to lay out, in painstaking detail, exactly what people have claimed to see in and around the hotel. With each moment that passes, Tsukishima grows more incredulous. 

“What?” Hinata asks after he finishes without any interruptions. He looks unbearably smug. “Nothing to say?” 

“Just- amazed by people’s general stupidity,” Tsukishima says, then proceeds to lay out exactly why all those supposed sightings are bullshit. 

 

_iv._

“Our apartment is _not_ haunted,” Tsukishima says, glaring at the side of Hinata’s head like he can make it spontaneously combust if he does it long enough. 

Hinata turns to him, affronted. “It is. You heard it too! There’s totally a ghost in our hallway!” 

Tsukishima scowls. It’s true - when they’d been standing in the near dark of their hallway and heard somebody who wasn’t there sobbing, he’d been willing to believe it was a ghost’s doing. Now, though, in the daylight with several days between him and The Incident, he’s starting to think it may just have been an overreaction. He’d been sleep deprived and on edge, so it would have been easy to mistake a noise coming from the apartment above them as being in the room with them. 

He’s about to say as much, when he’s interrupted by a squeak from Yachi. “Um,” she says, looking nervously between the two of them, “I can’t say I really understand what’s going on, but it might be a good idea to investigate closer.” 

“We tried that already,” Tsukishima says, “It just made this dumbass convinced our apartment is haunted.” 

“Oh, no” Yachi waves her hand in dismissal of the thought. “That’s not what I meant. I was thinking you could find some way more… objective, I suppose, to find out what’s going on.” She pauses to see if the boys understand her meaning, and sighs when it becomes clear they don’t. “Like, taking a video or audio recording.” 

“Oooooooh,” Hinata exclaims, just a tad too loud the way he always is. Tsukishima would be embarrassed, but the other patrons in the cafe barely spare them a glance. “That’s brilliant, Yacchan!” 

Yachi blushes. “It’s nothing, really. Anybody could have come up with it.” 

Hinata takes a moment to smile at her before he turns that million-watt smile in Tsukishima’s direction. Tsukishima has exactly one second to think, _well, shit_ , before Hinata draws him into his pace again. 

 

_ix._

They find the graves mostly on accident. Hinata finds a dirt path and immediately runs down it. Tsukishima follows him, even once the path has thinned so much it’s disappeared and they’re just crashing through the bush - he spares a moment to pray no snake attacks them - until they reach a clearing with several graves in it. 

At the sight of them, Hinata turns to him, looking unbearably smug. “No sacred land, huh?” 

“Shut up,” Tsukishima mutters. “Just because people are buried here doesn’t mean the land is _sacred_.” He walks toward one of the graves and, just to prove that he can, knocks on the low stone wall around it. “Hello? Spirits? Any spooky spirits here that want to murder us?” 

“Tsukishima!” Hinata squeaks out. When Tsukishima spares a glance over his shoulder he can see Hinata is shaking. 

He waits a moment. Nothing happens. 

“See,” he says, turning to Hinata with his own smug look, “I told you there’s nothing-” 

Something crashes to the ground near them. Hinata lets out an unholy shriek and runs over to cling to Tsukishima’s arm. “What was that?” he whispers. 

“Nothing,” Tsukishima says. 

“Definitely not!” Hinata argues. “It’s a ghost! A ghost that wants to kill us!” 

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Tsukishima shoves Hinata off him. “Stay here. I’ll go look.” 

With that, he stalks over to the place the noise came from, and leans over to inspect the surrounding area. It doesn’t take long before he finds the most probable cause. He stoops forward to grab a large branch from the ground and turns around to present it to Hinata. “See? Not ghosts. Just a branch that fell from a tree.” 

Hinata is still shaking so much Tsukishima fears he might vibrate into a different dimension. With a sigh, he walks over and prods him in the shoulder. “Stop being so scared, idiot. There’s nothing here.” 

“Of course you’d say that, Boringshima. You don’t believe in ghosts,” he mutters sullenly, but he does grab hold of the back of Tsukishima’s shirt and lets his grip stay there while they continue exploring. And, well, it’s not as bad as it could be. 

 

_v._

Hinata puts their video online, because _of course_ he does. Two weeks later he turns to Tsukishima with a sparkle in his eyes and says, “Tsukishima. Let’s go ghost hunting.” 

Tsukishima can’t find it in him to refuse. 

**Author's Note:**

> the hotel they're at is real! look up the nakagusuku kogen hotel if you want to know more
> 
> SO originally there was meant to be more. and there will be. i've done too much research to have them only go to one haunted location in japan. look out for that, i suppose.


End file.
